THE Government has given a clear indication that West Somerset Council has no future as a stand-alone authority.

But local MP Ian Liddell-Grainger put forward a plea for Government support to save the authority which he said "needs to survive".

Speaking during a Commons debate this week, Local Government Minister Brandon Lewis underlined his belief that the council had to look at other options.

A report by the Local Government Association has warned West Somerset will cease to be viable and will effectively run out of cash in two years' time.

Mr Lewis told MPs he had already visited West Somerset and met council leader Cllr Tim Taylor a number of times.

And, he said: "Given its critical mass - the area has just 35,000 residents - it must consider sharing management and services with other authorities."

West Somerset is already in discussions about pooling many of its services with Taunton Deane.

During the debate, obtained by shire MPs who are campaigning for fairer Government grant settlements for rural authorities, West Somerset's Conservative MP Ian Liddell-Grainger told the House that blame for the council's plight lay at the door of repeated reductions in government support.

"It has now got to the stage where, unless severe decisions are made, it will no longer exist," he said.

Mr Liddell-Grainger warned West Somerset was not the only authority in peril because of grant allocations which awarded comparatively less money to sparsely-populated rural authorities than to urban ones.

"I plead for West Somerset Council, because I think that it needs to survive. The Minister and everyone else have done their best, but the odds are still skewed against it," he said.

"Unfortunately, if this situation continues, West Somerset will not be the only one. I can assure all colleagues that other district councils will be in the same position in a few years.

"It is becoming more obvious that, unless a decision is made quickly, local government may not last until 2020. The decision has to be made in this financial year, or the next at the outside.

"The two options are either to cut urban or put up rural. That is it - there is not a lot else we can do. The Minister has to decide which way we go. It will not be easy, because we do not have the money, but quite simply something must be done if we do not want all our district councils to disappear and turn into great unitary councils."

Mr Liddell-Grainger, whose constituency includes some of the most sparsely-populated areas in the country, is one of 50 MPs who have now backed the Rural Services Network in condemning current Government funding policies.

They say the way grants are calculated makes no account of the increased cost of delivering services in rural areas and as a result leaves non-urban authorities hugely disadvantaged.

Under recently announced allocations, for instance, predominantly rural local authorities will see an average 3.81 per cent reduction in formula funding compared with a 2.04 per cent cut for urban authorities. 'Significantly' rural authorities will fare even worse with a cut averaging 5.21 per cent.